The second episode of Red Dwarf XII was recorded on Friday. Of all episodes recorded so far this one seems to have been the most difficult one for the cast, the crew and the audience. Technical errors, exhaustion and the like all playing it’s part.
Danny John-Jules certainly felt it the next day:

Was this episode focussed on a particular cast member or a team effort?

D/D: A bit of a mixed bag: Rimmer based but also a team effort with a lot if back story.

CJ So, this episode focuses on the team as a whole but is also about Rimmer World. Concerning the storyline, that is all I will say as I don’t want to give any spoilers away.

AJ Bit of a call back to Rimmerworld, which surprised me. So Rimmer focussed but a group thing and a bit odd sometimes.

What episode can you most compare it to?

D/D Take Terrorform and Rimmerworld but then not at all. Sounds weird and it was all rather confusing. It seems to be one of these shows where we can expect to later hear no-one had a clue what it was bout.

CJ I thought that Danny stood out, maybe because he had some of the funniest lines. Between takes, Rob stayed in character and made for some very funny out takes! After they had finished a certain scene, Rob took the mic from the warm up comic and started talking about “Archie”! Very funny.

AJ Danny.

Any special guest stars or guest performances?

D/D Quite a big name, really. But I didn’t care for him. Red Dwarf is about the boys, names only distract.

CJ This episode had a very good and surprising guest star in ***. When he first appeared, it wasn’t announced or anything, he was just there and you could hear the audiences surprise! After he had finished he said to the audience that he needs every bit of work he can get now that *** is working on his own! He also said many thanks to the cast and crew for making him feel very welcome.

AJ Quite a surprising one, but he said he was a fan, so …

Any interesting smeg ups/technical problems?

D/D Lots! It was smeg up city, but not in a good way. Technical errors galore, it seemed to hamper an already overly tired cast. It was so bad I’m surprise no-one got angry.

CJ There was a few technical issues which meant having to do one particular scene 6 or 7 times. One time, they actually forgot to start recording! It was a little difficult to laugh when you saw it that many times but I think we all did a good job! Chris had a rather difficult and tongue twisting line that he had to do a few times which prompted Danny to ask him why he is struggling so much!

AJ Long waits, mostly and technical stuff. Craig Charles tried to keep up morale with jokes and stories, bullying Robert Llewellyn about his urinary infection – “leaking Archie” indeed!!

Anything that caught your attention?

D/D Again Chris and Danny. This might surprise you, as I just said how good they were, but these two seemed exhausted. Danny really struggled for a bit, but he had to stand there for quite some time waiting in the same position until things sorted out. He looked ready to pass out or collapse at a certain point.
Chris between takes just had no energy: I know he’s quiet but I’ve never seen him like this. Not one impression after a smeg up. He was just off. Still, once the cameras were rolling they pulled it out of the bag.
Robert had something too, urinary infection – must be hell to be Kryten with that going on. In that suit!
Craig saved the night in a way: he had to rescue the comedy warm up from heckling and tried his best to keep things happy, he did a good job.
Having the chance to be at a lot of tapings you begin to notice things, and this was the most “off” night I’ve ever been to.
I get the feeling everyone is pushing themselves too hard. It’s as if they’re trying to film Doctor Who in six weeks instead of six months.

CJ We managed to get front row seats and when they came out from behind the curtains, I managed to shake every single one of their hands! A moment I will never forget. One negative was that during this particular episode, they did not use the set aboard the Red Dwarf as most of the episode is set somewhere else (nuff said!). Doug Naylor came out at the very beginning to say hi and to ask is not to tweet anything about the show, so to see him was also a bonus. At about 9:50 they said that filming will go past 10:00 so they would understand if whoever wanted to go would go. No one left at this point! As it went on quite late, you could see Danny and Chris were getting a little irritated and Craig had a DJ set after the recording!
I thought Chris was in good form and didn’t see him look ill or tired. In one Smeg up he did his impression of Kenneth Williams which got a cheer! He seemed absolutely fine so maybe he has got over his illness.
All in all, I think this episode is funnier than Series 10, so we are just going to have to wait to see if the reset of this series is also as good!

AJ They barely used the main set, making the audience restless. It was really tense, the poor warm up guy bore the brunt of it, really sad and mean. Chris and Danny seemed knackered, especially near the end. Danny also looked like he was in pain, standing on his Cat heels too long. I think Chris might have done one Kenneth, but I didn’t notice. He was very withdrawn mostly, but had a lot to do, so that might factor into it. The energy on the whole seemed low, except for Craig. There was something a bit odd with this one, but can’t really put my finger on it.

Will there be many special effects?

D/D Probably a few.

CJ There were a few times when they cut to VT to show a pre done bit that has special effects. The effects were good so, again, something to look forward to.